Select only a single column in LINQ - linq

Question

The EntityModel is defined as:
Personnel has a link to a Country
When executing this code in LinqPad, I see that the SQL which is generated is not optimized (all fields are returned) in the first query ? What am I missing here or doing wrong ?
Query 1 LINQ
var Country = Countries.FirstOrDefault(o => o.Id == 100000581);
var personnelIds = Country.Personnels.Select(p => p.Id).ToArray();
personnelIds.Dump();
Query 1 SQL
exec sp_executesql N'SELECT [t0].[Id], [t0].[Version], [t0].[Identifier], [t0].[Name], , [t0].[UpdatedBy] FROM [Personnel] AS [t0] WHERE [t0].[Country_Id] = #p0',N'#p0 bigint',#p0=100000581
Query 2 LINQ
var Country = Countries.FirstOrDefault(o => o.Id == 100000581);
var personnelIds2 = Personnels.Where(p => p.Country == Country).Select(p => p.Id).ToArray();
personnelIds2.Dump();
Query 2 SQL
exec sp_executesql N'SELECT [t0].[Id] FROM [Personnel] AS [t0] WHERE [t0].[Country_Id] = #p0',N'#p0 bigint',#p0=100000581
The database used is SQL Express 2008. And LinqPad version is 4.43.06

Answer 1

//var Country = Countries.FirstOrDefault(o => o.Id == 100000581);
var personnelIds = context.Personnels
.Where(p => p.Country.Id == 100000581)
.Select(p => p.Id)
.ToArray();
personnelIds.Dump();
Try this, it should be better.

Answer 2

Personnels collection will be populated via lazy loading when accessed, hence retrieving all of the fields from the DB. Here's what's happening...
// retrieves data and builds the single Country entity (if not null result)
var Country = Countries.FirstOrDefault(o => o.Id == 100000581);
// Country.Personnels accessor will lazy load and construct all Personnel entity objects related to this country entity object
// hence loading all of the fields
var personnelIds = Country.Personnels.Select(p => p.Id).ToArray();
You want something more like this:
// build base query projecting desired data
var personnelIdsQuery = dbContext.Countries
.Where( c => c.Id == 100000581 )
.Select( c => new
{
CountryId = c.Id,
PersonnelIds = c.Personnels.Select( p => p.Id )
}
// now do enumeration
// your example shows FirstOrDefault without OrderBy
// either use SingleOrDefault or specify an OrderBy prior to using FirstOrDefaul
var result = personnelIdsQuery.OrderBy( item => item.CountryId ).FirstOrDefault();
OR:
var result = personnelIdsQuery.SingleOrDefault();
Then get the array of IDs if not null
if( null != result )
{
var personnelIds = result.PersonnelIds;
}

Answer 3

Try can also try grouping personnel into a single query
var groups =
(from p in Personnel
group p by p.CountryId into g
select new
{
CountryId = g.Key
PersonnelIds = p.Select(x => x.Id)
});
var personnelIds = groups.FirstOrDefault(g => g.Key == 100000581);

Answer 4

Do you have the ForeignKey explicitly defined in your POCO for Personnel? It's common to leave it out in EF, but adding it would massively simplify both this code and the resulting SQL:
public class Personnel
{
public Country Country { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("Country")]
public int CountryId { get; set; }
. . .
}
> update-database -f -verbose
var ids = db.Personnel.Where(p => p.CountryId == 100000581).Select(p => p.Id).ToArray();